


Nothing left, not even ashes

by yenside



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Family, Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-08
Updated: 2011-12-08
Packaged: 2017-10-27 02:37:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yenside/pseuds/yenside
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A drabble focusing on the (Eleventh) Doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing left, not even ashes

It catches him like a fist to the gut. His children are dead.

 

He is piloting a course when he remembers. He is reading a book when he remembers. He is facing down monsters when he remembers. He was a father and now his children are dead.

 

His blood always feels cold for a second, then unbearably hot (like two suns beating on his back), his synapses fire out a staccato beat as guilt settles low, heavy and inexorable on his stomach.

 

He knows, logically, the chemicals that are released, which hormones and sections of his brain work together to create the paternal instinct. But sometimes he feels a Rani-like impulse to hold that feeling down and dissect it into each component chemical, each nerve and neural pathway. Sometimes he wants to cut those parts of him out.

 

They fuel his rage, his coldness, they swallow up his mercy and compassion and leave him a bitter husk. He was a parent and there was a war and now his children are dead.

 

He wants to forget but he can't. Not ever.

 

Sometimes he sits in the TARDIS room Green-14-soar, a pleasant garden with a tree that plays holograms underneath it's boughs, and watches old, old footage of Susan smiling and working and alive. He feels guilty.

 

He was a father and there was a war and now his children are dead and it is all his fault. Even the weight of his entire species on his shoulders is a less heavy burden.


End file.
